Ben Barr Named University of Maine Hockey Head Coach
Ben Barr is the new head coach for the University of Maine men's hockey team, becoming the fifth head coach in program history.
The 39-year-old most recently served as the associate head coach and recruiting coordinator for UMass. During his tenure in Amherst, the Minutemen won their first-ever Hockey East Regular Season Championship and reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 2018-19 before winning the program's first-ever National Championship in 2020-21.
Prior to joining the staff at UMass in 2016, Barr was an assistant coach at Providence from 2011-14 and an assistant coach at Union College from 2008-11. Barr was integral in recruiting at both schools and helped lay championship foundations at both stops, as Union won the national title three years after he left the program in 2014, while Providence won the national title the year after Barr left in 2015.
Barr was part of former-UMaine assistant Nate Leaman's staffs at both Union and Providence.
As a player, Barr played for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the early 2000's and had 64 points (25g/39a) in 140 career games. He was the team MVP in 2002-03 and served as captain during his senior season in '03-'04. Part of Barr's playing career at RPI overlapped with University of Maine Athletic Director Ken Ralph's time at RPI, where Ralph served as AD from 2002-07.
While the position of head coach at UMaine is the lowest-paying job in Hockey East, Barr will nearly double his previous salary of $132,600 as an assistant at UMass.
Barr was a finalist for the University of Vermont job last year.